French prime minister vows to stand firm and 'go to the end' against 'radical' strikers

France’s prime minister vowed on Saturday to “go to the end” in his confrontation over labour reforms with a hard-left union that is threatening to disrupt the Euro 2016 football tournament.

With a resolve that previous leaders have often lacked while trying to modernise the economy, Manuel Valls pledged to defeat the strikers’ blockade of fuel depots and refineries.

Mr Valls told a crisis meeting of fuel and transport industry representatives that he would back their efforts to replenish petrol stations. A third of pumps have run dry across France. "My responsibility as head of government is to take action so that French people can buy petrol and companies are not penalised by the blockades,” he said.

If necessary, the security forces would disperse any strikers who block supplies, added the prime minister.

The tradition of street protest in France has long been nourished by the tendency of governments to give in, but Mr Valls, a centrist leader who has been compared to Tony Blair, has staked his political future on reforming employment laws.

Neither he nor the unpopular President Francois Hollande can afford the kind of u-turn made in 1995 by a centre-Right government that dropped plans for welfare cuts as strikes paralysed the country.

Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, has vowed to stand firm against the strikes.Credit:
AFP

But Mr Valls appears increasingly isolated as he faces the firebrand leader of the hardline CGT union, Philippe Martinez, who declared that if strikes were to disrupt Euro 2016, which kicks off next week, “it will not be our fault.”

His ally, Olivier Besancenot of the far-Left NPA party, warned that it was up to the government to back down: “The Euro without trains, petrol and in the dark will be a bit sad,” he said.

The CGT risks losing its place as France’s largest union so Mr Martinez can no more afford to capitulate than Mr Valls. The CGT, which has communist roots, now represents only three per cent of French workers, and to preserve its influence Mr Martinez has to prove that old-style militancy works.

Mr Valls said he had “no problem” with the union or Mr Martinez, but he would not bow to the CGT’s demand for the withdrawal of the reform bill, which has already been watered down. The prime minister expressed unease about violence during the street protests, condemning the “radicalism in our society.”

Tourists were already being deterred by the terrorist attacks in Paris last November. Now they are staying away because of the petrol shortage.

Zyad Si Hocine, a Paris hotel owner, said that few hotels were fully booked for Euro 2016. “For the World Cup in 1998, we were all booked up six months in advance, but now there’s a big slump.”

Tourists thronging the Louvre were unperturbed by the unrest, although some said that friends planning to come to France by car had changed their plans.

Mike Reynolds, 28, from London, said: “A colleague of mine was planning to go to France with his kids next week but he’s cancelled and he’s going to Norfolk instead. He told me the kids took it pretty badly but it would have been even worse if they’d got stuck in France and not been able to get back.”

Hope Draper, 25, also from London, described how a minicab driver had used the petrol shortages to trick them into paying a vastly inflated fare for a short journey. “When we arrived at Gare du Nord on Thursday night, a man came up to us and told us that if we queued for a taxi we would pay close to a hundred euros. He charged us 75 euros to go to our hotel in Paris. He was very convincing. He had a little badge and was talking on bluetooth.”